REV talks with Atnre Alleyne
“Mike Matthews situation” is listed in the show notes, so I’ll have to listen to see if Atnre cops to the media take-down he pulled off.
Also, for the record, I have first hand knowledge of the fact that Teensharp is doing some good work.
The irony is that Atnre dings Mathews for not owning his past statements (which is false. Mathews fully owned his past statements), while he goes to extremes not own his motives in the interview and here.
Very disingenuous defense from Atnre of his attack on Mathews. Like he had no larger goal in mind. Give me a break.
Right. Like he just did this as a public service with no ulterior motive in mind.
His goal was to silence one of the strongest advocates for public education we have in Delaware.
A legend in his own mind.
He didn’t ask me about how TeenSHARP is supporting 1000+ students with virtual college advising during this pandemic. (Www.teensharp.org/collegeknowledge)
He didn’t ask me about how we raised $100,000 to help provide economic relief for undocumented Delawareans.
He didn’t ask about the work DelawareCAN and TeenSHARP are doing with students across the state to advocate for racial justice in their schools.
He didn’t ask about the 48 education and community leaders learning in The Proximity Project over the last eight weeks to better serve communities of color.
We’re in a pandemic and they asked me questions about the type of drama that gets folks’ attention.
Drama. Your casual dismissal of engineering a media takedown of a union President you happened to disagree with is very disingenuous.
TeenSHARP is first rate.
That was anything but a ‘gotcha’ interview. Most of it was a solid discussion of Delaware education policy.
But, it would have been malpractice for him not to ask you about what you did and why you did it.
You had no answer. You have no answer. So, you portray yourself as the victim b/c he didn’t ask precisely the questions YOU wanted him to ask. Not to mention that you had every opportunity to steer the interview in the direction you wanted. He wasn’t cross-examining you.
It’s the old ‘kill your parents and beg for mercy b/c you’re an orphan’ trick.
Teensharp does some good work, but is it scalable? They do a good job of finding promising students and getting them into selective private schools. Why don’t we just send all the kids to Tatnall, Sanford, etc? Atnre hates public education so much and rather than fight to improve the system, he finds and removes promising students from public school system, leaving it worse off. Everyone knows this guy is not trustworthy. Go look up who funds his 50 CAN work…hint: Rhee, Devos, Walton, Koch. If we had 10 Mike Matthews for every 1 Atnre, Delaware would be better off. I’m mean seriously, listen to the tape. This guy is so full of himself.
“C”: I usually don’t engage with people who can’t use their real name but I’m feeling generous. TeenSHARP doesn’t get students into private schools. We have been working for eleven years to help Black, Latino, and low-income students attend and thrive at top colleges. Please do your research.
http://www.teensharp.org
Your ‘generosity’ is duly-noted. As is your self back-pat.
The irony is that Atnre pretends that his real problem was that Mathews didn’t own his past remarks.
As admirable as Mr. Alleyne’s work is, and as much as it helps those it chooses to shower beneficence upon, it does nothing to address the educational needs of society at large.
Our educational system is not judged by the quality of its highest-testing students, but by the cumulative scores of all students. The needs of the two groups are different, and Mr. Alleyne’s works buttresses the claims of both neoliberals and conservatives, who tend to judge education by individual outcomes, and then using the success of the top achievers to justify the status quo, without understanding the systemic requirement for a permanent low-wage underclass. Who’s gonna flip the burgers?
The education system is tasked with educating all. Mr. Alleyne has tasked himself with picking out the most promising but overlooked students. While it’s a worthy enterprise, its effect on the system as a whole is deleterious. In that regard, Mr. Alleyne is helping the existing system defend itself against the charge of systemic racism by skimming off those most likely to succeed.
Whether he realizes it or not, the success of those few minority students gives the conservatives and neoliberals the cover they need to defend the existing system, because their mistaken belief is that if one person can succeed then anyone can succeed.
In short, Mr. Alleyn’s work is not progressive. It is elitist. He is trying to help more minorities join the elite. He is not trying to erase the barriers between the elite and the mass of students whose learning is the actual point of an education system — at least, it’s the point on which the failures of the system are based. And these failures are then used to justify our low funding levels for education.
As I said, Mr. Alleyne’s work is valuable on the level of the starfish principle — made a difference to that one. But let’s not pretend it’s a progressive solution that can help the school system. That’s not what it’s for. It’s for helping individuals.
As for the Mike Matthews situation, Mr. Alleyne carefully avoids explaining what he accomplished vs. what he hoped to accomplish. This unwillingness to take responsibility for his actions — justified with the weakest possible what-aboutism — does Mr. Alleyne no credit.
I honestly don’t know how to feel about people that think that their intelligent words and analysis about what minorities should have or not to be part of the “elite” or not… and all around the discourse that Atnre’s work helps only individuals and then going into sustaining a neoliberal model, etc… and then keeping the system on the same line… (seriously)???
Before criticizing Atnreakn Alleyne please introduce all the work that you do to make a systemic difference to stop injustices oppressing our communities for generations already!
ENOUGH!!
Show me the money (what do you do for education and minorities that flip burgers every day. Don’t they have the right to be scientists if they want so?)
I wish that people would really, REALLY understand what minorities go through…. and how small are the chances for students without the means to have a chance to become what they can be and seek.
I have a deep respect for Atnre and I don’t welcome people that disrespect and insults him like this. Atnreakn Alleyne is every day, for many hours fighting the real fight, empowering kids and showing them what they can do and how elevated they can think to transform their communities BECAUSE people may not realize that all those students going through Teensharp are becoming social justice fighters aware of the level of oppression and punishment they have been condemned to go through with the bad educational standards that our educational system serves presently.
People, please stop being insensitive, arrogant, and hateful. Get to work and roll your sleeves to bring fairness to the world as good people do and Stop attacking real change-makers that are truly building up the next generation who will have the courage to face the injustices and bring systemic changes everywhere thanks to a strong education based on social justice ethics. Just because in some people’s imagination people like Atnre don’t fill in for what you think education should be for students in a context that most people don’t truly understand. Atnre and Tatiana are an example to the world and it is sad that the effort and sacrifices that people don’t see and only judge without properly understanding because they don’t do the kind of work involved to teach and prepare those students and neither interact with them and know how they live and what they go through every day with many, racist and discriminatory practices and microaggressions that try to diminish them in every single way to prevent them from reaching out to career paths that they can and want to follow, instead… “they should stay where they are enduring the systemic racism and keeping quiet not joining elite colleges to make them strong so they can come back home empowered and ready to transform their communities… it may be better for them to think that flipping burgers is an acceptable future for all those students that can’t and wouldn’t be able to have a quality college education”
With all due respect, please stop criticizing people that do the hard work to even fight for quality public education and not mediocre sub-standardized that only give students “enough skills to keep them down in low-income jobs”
Most of the people repeat what they hear others saying. I do work with Atnre, I know what he does, how he thinks, and how brave he is compared to many other change-makers to speak the truth without hesitation for students and people of color.
I am mad beyond my calmness because entitled people like this person keep spreading misconceptions about great people that should be honored and not demonized in such an unfair way.
I had to say this and I hope everyone reading it take on honest research of what people really do before prizing them or condemning.
If someone doesn’t have anything better to do than criticize negatively people that are actually bettering communities, please do something else, we have enough non-sense in the world and people tearing apart every possible community. Please stop this nonsense.
If this jeremiad is supposed to impress me, it did: I’m shocked at your lack of reading comprehension.
I praised what he’s doing. You apparently missed that. Calling someone an elitist is not demonizing them — or is it for you?
I mentioned the burger flippers to point out that a capitalist system depends on cheap labor. Mr. Alleyne’s approach is a one-by-one effort to pull some people from what might have been a life of burger-flipping. It is a worthy effort. But it ultimately perpetuates the existing system, just substituting some minority faces for some of the white ones. This does nothing to help the burger-flippers.
This is basic analysis of what he does. You apparently can’t comprehend that.
See, I’d be a lot more impressed with Mr. Alleyne if he was teaching critical thinking skills. If you’re an example of what he does teach, well, it speaks for itself then, doesn’t it?
I’m just going to sit these right here for Alby who said a lot just to say they have no clue what we have been doing at TeenSHARP for the last eleven years. Feel free to come see the work. We’re there every Saturday (9am-3pm) and on most evenings during the week empowering and uplifting!
https://www.teensharp.org/2020/10/06/teensharpies-leading-the-fight-for-racial-justice-in-schools/
https://www.teensharp.org/2020/11/05/teensharp-students-are-making-their-mark-this-election-season/
What were you trying to accomplish by orchestrating the media takedown of the President of Delaware’s biggest teacher’s union?
Did removing Matthews have the impact that you hoped for?
No clue with what you have been doing? I took it right off your 990.
“The program prepares low-income students of color for highly selective
colleges while connecting them to premier leadership opportunities and
developing them as leaders in their communities.”
If I have no clue what you’re doing, it must be because you’re a lousy communicator. I took it right from your own filings.
Your offer to “come see the work” is nice, but you’re substituted it for addressing my comment. That does nothing but make me suspicious, which I always get when someone overreacts to mild criticism.
I said you help minority students join the elite, which is nothing but a paraphrase of your mission statement, and I said it’s such a goal boosts individuals while failing to address the systemic problem. If your defense is that you awaken students to their victimization by the educational system, well, that’s nice, but so what? Do you really think that improves academic performance? If so, demonstrate it. Where’s the data?
Furthermore, you are still failing to offer a satisfactory answer to the Matthews question: Why? What were you hoping to accomplish? You can answer the question or you can pound sand. The choice is yours.
And if all you got from my comment was “saying nothing,” you’re not bright enough to be teaching anyone about anything.
I find it interesting that Mr. Alleyne, so quick to respond to a less-than-glowing reception here, has stopped responding rather than explain why he got Mike Matthews fired.
But I suspect he and his minions haven’t stopped reading us, so let me leave another question for him:
Are you in favor of the “ban the box” movement — the one that contends we shouldn’t let future employers know an applicant has been imprisoned? Because the whole idea behind it is that someone shouldn’t pay for a lifetime due to his or her past.
So, if you do, please explain why the same principle shouldn’t apply to Mr. Matthews. I eagerly await your response.